Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

This is a whole wheat sourdough recipe that I’ve been developing over the last couple of years. I live in a desert highland climate approximately a mile above sea level, so it should work well for those of you who live high and dry like I do.

Fair warning, this makes a very dense chewy loaf. See the notes at the bottom if you want to use some white flour for a lighter, fluffier loaf.

Materials

Kitchen scale that measures in grams
Kitchen mixer with a bread hook
Cast iron skillet or dutch oven
Probe-style thermometer, like a meat thermometer

Ingredients

100 grams sourdough start, ideally fed 12-18 hours prior
300 grams water (filtered or distilled)
500 grams fresh ground wheat flour
18 grams salt
18 grams gluten (omit if using high protein flour)

Steps

• Combine all ingredients in a kitchen mixer with a bread hook attachment.
• Run the mixer for five minutes at a high enough speed to knead the dough.
• Let the dough rest for fifteen minutes.
• Feel the dough, it should be slightly tacky but shouldn’t stick to your fingers much.
• If it is still too wet, add 50 grams white flour.
• Whether you added more flour or not, turn the mixer back on for 5 to 10 more minutes until the dough passes the windowpane test.
• Remove the dough from the mixer and form it into a ball.
• Put the dough in a proofing bowl in a warm place, cover with a non-terrycloth kitchen towel.
  
• Proof the dough for 4 to 8 hours, or longer if the temperature is cool.
• Put a cast iron pan in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees F
• Carve slashes or an X in the top of the dough ball
• Place the dough in the preheated cast iron pan in the oven.
  
• Immediately reduce the temperature to 400 degrees F
• Bake 30 to 45 minutes until the internal temperature measures at 190 degrees F.
  
• Remove the bread from the cast iron pan, cool for 20 minutes if you can keep people’s hands off of it for that long.
  

Notes

I feed my sourdough start with whole wheat flour, but from my experience it works just as well to use a white flour sourdough start. It will just make the bread less dense, and then you can’t really call it 100% whole wheat.

If you want a lighter, less dense loaf, you can make a mix of wheat and white flour. I found that a ratio of ⅔ wheat flour and ⅓ white flour works well. Reduce the amount of gluten used according to how much wheat flour you use.

The amount of sourdough start can be adjusted, you just need to compensate with the amount of water and flour, and it may change the proofing time. For example, you can use 200 grams less sourdough start by adding 100 more grams of water and 100 more grams of flour. It may increase the proofing time by a couple of hours.

You can double the recipe to make two loaves, as long as you have a mixer bowl big enough to handle it.

This works pretty well for dinner rolls, just divide the dough into balls about 50 grams each before proofing and put them in a greased baking tray covered with a towel. Bake at 400 for about 15 to 20 minutes until the internal temperature measures at 190 degrees.

You can also make whole wheat New York style bagels with the cold overnight proof method as described on Sourdough Home - Sourdough Bagels.